Governing the Occupy Movement through crime

In many cities, including most prominently Oakland and New York, tent encampments on public spaces by the Occupy Wall Street movement have been cleared in early morning raids by police (read about the Oakland situation here).

This time, at least, police violence seems to have been minimal. But what is regrettable is the use by city leaders of the lame excuse that “crime” problems necessitated the end of the encampments. It may be that the Occupy Wall street movement must generate new meaningful actions to build its momentum, but the claims that the encampments were generating unacceptable levels of crime is both false and reflexive.

In Oakland this played out in almost comic precision. Hemmoraging legitimacy after first clearing the plaza in a violent police sweep and then letting the Occupy encampment be reestablished Mayor Jean Quan seemed paralyzed with indecision about what to do about the camp until a murder on the periphery of the encampment last week gave her a crime cover. Having supported the goals of the occupation and accepted encampment as a protest tactic the Mayor now found an imperative requiring the preventive clearing of the site (read the full story in the SFChron here):

“The encampment became a place where we had repeated violence and, this week, a murder. We had to bring the camp to an end before more people were hurt.”

[Based on radio reports this morning, Mayor Bloomberg is also citing public safety as a prime reason for clearing Zuccatti Square.]

While the details of the murder investigation are unknown to me, there is little reason to believe from what we know thus far that the encampment created a context that made such a killing more likely. Far from it. As media attention to the encampment has disclosed to many casual observers, Oakland has loads of homeless men, many of them battling symptoms of mental illness, life long drug abuse, and the soul destroying impact of mass incarceration.

The city also has lots of young men punished and pushed out of schools and toward jail (read Victor Rios’ superb book Punished for more on that) whose search for dignity takes them into deadly games of gang competition and related honor violence. These troubled populations, frequently churned by law enforcement, prison, and parole, has been a source of crime and insecurity in Oakland for decades; Occupy Oakland didn’t bring it there, and based on published reports did not make it worst.

Indeed, as a criminologist I would suspect the encampment may have provided a temporary context and social network that was very positive for individuals marginalized by the empty rungs on Oakland’s post-industrial economic ladder and generally punished by government interventions. For a short period, many of these individuals found themselves gathered in a common political and social enterprise with highly educated and employed people who generally don’t share the same social network. A more confident mayor of Oakland might have invited the Occupy Oakland movement to set up satellite Occupy encampments in some of the hard pressed Oakland neighborhoods where young people desperately need a positive pro-social movement to be involved in which gives them hope and dignity while teaching them tools of political involvement and non-violence.

What ever the Occupy movement does next it should be judged on cogency of its message and the dignity of its tactics, and not stigmatized by a crime problem that belongs to Oakland, its Mayor and its police department.

Professor Simon your statement quoted below is very insightful. While I’m not sure that if Mayor Quan had suggested satellite encampments that she would have been met with consensus of the occupy group, nor necessarily greeted with enthusiasm in the satellite communities; but the idea that sustained proximity to people working constructively on ways to improve society can transform ones life!

“Indeed, as a criminologist I would suspect the encampment may have provided a temporary context and social network that was very positive for individuals marginalized … For a short period, many of these individuals found themselves gathered in a common political and social enterprise with highly educated and employed people who generally don’t share the same social network. A more confident mayor of Oakland might have invited the Occupy Oakland movement to set up satellite Occupy encampments in some of the hard pressed Oakland neighborhoods where young people desperately need a positive pro-social movement to be involved in which gives them hope and dignity while teaching them tools of political involvement and non-violence.”

Those who know Mayor Quan know that she is a long-time community organizer. She has more experience as a grass-roots change-agent in her little finger than many have yet to acquire or ever will. Yes, it looks like Quan has been indecisive on the occupation, and she is getting criticized from the right, center, and left (some with truly ideological differences, some who just want to see Quan fail so they can be installed). I think she’s been indecisive because she herself is a veteran of many a demonstration.

I’m sure Quan is just as morally outraged as the occupiers about the foreclosures, the conditions in this country that create homelessness, the vast disparities in healthcare, housing, and education between the haves and have nots. BUT as mayor she cannot just run on moral outrage, and either can a sustainable movement for that matter. As mayor she has a responsibility to balance the interests of diverse sectors of the city. I doubt any of the others who ran against her could have done any better in this situation. They’re all probably secretly thankful they are not in her shoes, and they can criticize from the sideline!

And Quan is certainly not saying that progressives attract crime. She’s saying that the encampment, which made a strong and positive statement in its early days, was beginning to turn into its opposite, and it’s true — scaring away customers from small businesses, draining city resources, endangering new employment ops, creating sanitation problems, and yes creating some dangerous situations. Maybe Quan should have met formally with occupiers at the very beginning, but that’s 20-20 hindsight.

I think Oakland is lucky to have a progressive Oakland mayor and with some creativity on everyone’s part there are surely ways to move forward together.

It seems that Occupy Oakland had been thrust into the role of a defacto social services dispensary, giving food, housing, medical attention, and a place to sleep to many homeless people and others. Naturally some bad things have happened but if the city’s services weren’t so hollowed out by budget cuts they wouldn’t have been in this position, and many of these things would not have happened. The “progressives attract crime” is a self-fulfilling prophecy dictated by the circumstances progressives are in, not by any evil action of theirs.

“that political leaders facing a chronic legitimacy deficit since the late 1960s have frequently used protecting citizens from crime as the least problematic way of justifying the exercise of power.”

true dat!

X-ray machines are harmfull to humans, and USA Obama department wants them to continue to harm US citizens. Politicians do not have to go through them. The UK, today, banned all of them, they are not scared of the crimalists at Washington DC. They do this for fear, a made up war on terrorism, continued by the Dems in office today.

After kennedy was assasinated by the CIA, the car in front of him, why the Supruder Film was never released for 20 years and heavily edited, the culture of fear has dominated the democratic experiment.

Great Work, you are worthy of UC Berkeley, however many professors in my opinion fall short.